Security and Privacy Issues in Internet of Skies: Advanced Solutions for Drones and UAVs for Critical Infrastructures Protection

Abstract

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) are widely considered the next breakthrough in the ongoing Industry 4.0 revolution, thanks to their high mobility, on-demand deployment, and versatility in various industrial sectors such as manufacturing, military, transportation, and in general for critical infrastructures. All UAV communications towards a control system are wireless. However, due to the broadcast nature of the wireless channel, such systems are vulnerable to spoofing, jamming, and man in the middle attacks, to cite a few. This dissertation focused on investigating the security and privacy issues in Unmanned Aerial Systems to design a security framework targeted for cyber-critical infrastructures. First, we developed a dead-reckoning system that leverages the jamming signal to estimate the jammer location, which is leveraged as a radio-beacon to compute the relative position of the drone concerning the target. Then, we presented a privacy-preserving, distributed, and lightweight solution for co-location detection and collision avoidance of autonomous UAVs. The protocol is based on broadcast wireless messages that allows multiple UAVs to detect possible collisions for high-speed approaching UAVs without revealing their locations, and to provide escape manoeuvre towards a safe path.Finally, we proposed a solution enabling the anonymous remote identification of UAVs to allow them to broadcast RemoteID-compliant messages using ephemeral pseudonyms that only a Trusted Authority, such as the Federal Avionic Administrator, can link to the long-term identifier of the UAV and its operator. Within these works, we also proposed distinguished solutions by identifying and addressing new security challenges for the future promising research directions.

Pietro Tedeschi

Head of Cyber Electromagnetic Warfare Research

My research interests include Unmanned Aerial Vehicles Security, Maritime Security, Wireless Security, Internet of Things (IoT), Applied Cryptography, Privacy Preserving Systems, and Cyber-Physical Systems Security.